• Charlie Pierce of Esquire’s Politics Blog calls in at 10:30am ET / 7:30am PT to talk about the GOP’s trouble with “legitimate rape”

• Comedian and actor Richard Belzer (Law & Order: SVU) calls in at 11:30am ET / 8:30am PT to talk about his new book, “Dead Wrong: Straight Facts on the Country’s Most Controversial Cover-Ups)”

• Missouri Republican Rep. Todd Akin apologized Monday for comments he made about “legitimate rape” over the weekend, but rejected growing clamor even from fellow Republicans for him to abandon his Senate bid.

• President Obama said Monday that his campaign’s criticisms of Mitt Romney and other Republicans are not “out of bounds,” arguing that it is the Romney campaign that has crossed the line with false attacks on him.

• Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan joined forces on Monday to attack President Obama in New Hampshire, but it was Romney who leveled the harshest accusations, asserting that the president was running a dishonest campaign he called “sad and disappointing.”

• Phyllis Diller, the housewife-turned-comedienne with the cackling laugh who aimed some of her sharpest barbs at herself, died Monday morning in her Los Angeles home. She was 95.